


Like a Wheel, Like a Wind

by Mertens



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Dark Tower References, F/F, Modern AU, Past Domestic Violence, Werewolf AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-02-22 11:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22581979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertens/pseuds/Mertens
Summary: ”Ka was like a wheel, its one purpose to turn, and in the end it always came back to the place where it had started.“ - The Waste Lands, Stephen King“If it's Ka it'll come like a wind, and your plans will stand before it no more than a barn before a cyclone.” - Wizard and Glass, Stephen KingHoping to evade the stifling control of the men in her life, Christine Daaé goes on the lam and ends up in the little town of Derry, Maine. Still haunted by memories even after leaving her tutor and her childhood friend behind, she doesn’t think she’ll ever sing or find true happiness again - and she most certainly doesn’t think she’ll meet a werewolf.But Ka has other plans for her.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Meg Giry
Comments: 15
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

Christine slouched deeper into her seat on Greyhound bus as she fiddled with the wire of her earbuds, twisting them around her fingers in endless loops. She hadn’t put any music on her phone yet, hadn’t had a chance to, really - a new phone, a new number, no contacts added yet but with a handful of numbers already blocked from ever calling her again, sparing her from any more 3am threats and pleadings - but she felt that even if she had put any albums on it, she wouldn’t want to listen to them anyway. Music only reminded her of him, and being reminded of him was the last thing she wanted. 

Still, she wished she had something to listen to other than the diesel engine and the rumble of the tires on the old country road. She stared out at the scenery passing by, and caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the glass. She barely recognized herself, although, she supposed, she hadn’t recognized herself for a while now - but at the moment it was simply because of her new haircut. She’d never cut her hair so short before, and she was banking on everyone who used to know her assuming that she never would. She ran her hand through the slightly longer hair on top, pulling it out straight and studying how it tapered to a stop just above her ears. She wasn’t certain if she needed to color it, too, just to add another layer of protection in case she had been followed. She thought she had done fairly well covering her tracks, but she knew better than to underestimate the depth of Erik’s obsession and the reach of Raoul’s money and connections. 

It seemed the trees outside would never end - trees in oranges and yellows and reds, all of them in the decaying grasp of autumn - but sure enough she eventually saw the wooden sign that read _Welcome to Derry, Maine_. With its peeling black and white paint, it looked like something you’d find in a landfill somewhere. 

Her heart beat just a little faster. This was it. The start of her new life - one that would hopefully go a little better than her previous fresh starts that had all ended with a call at her place of work or note in the mail with that instantly recognizable handwriting. 

It had taken _her_ weeks to find the little town on a map, a small town that apparently wasn’t worth being mentioned by anyone if you were judging from the Google results, and then it had taken weeks more for her to find some mode of public transport to take her there. Derry was not a popular destination at best, and completely unknown at worst. 

Her faded duffel bag was the only luggage she took with her, and she watched as the bus took off down the road, leaving her at the lonely, desolate bus stop. She didn’t think it was only in her imagination that the bus seemed to be going faster than it had before, as though it wanted out of Derry as quick as it could. She chewed at her lip a little, hoping she wasn’t making a mistake. 

The trek to motel she’d be staying at was mostly silent, too - the noise of crickets out in the fields, the caw of a crow in the distance, her boots hitting the gravel alongside the ride, and the puff of her own breath. It seemed, when she thought about it, like plenty of noise, but still the atmosphere felt oppressive and stifling somehow. It was warm for being so late in the fall. She felt that perhaps at one time in her past life these deceptively simple sounds all together would have been cherished as a sort of music in themselves, but now all she could hear was discordant and jarring noise. 

The motel itself was oddly worn down for a town that seemingly received so few visitors, the wallpaper of the lobby long faded and the formerly red and orange honeycomb patterned carpet threadbare. She approached the concierge desk nervously, though she couldn’t say why she felt that way. 

“Do you have any vacancies?” her voice sounded too loud in the little lobby. 

The woman behind the desk nodded. 

“How long?”

Christine shifted from foot to foot. 

“A week?”

The woman grabbed a pink key fob and held it up. 

“Forty a day, two-eighty for the week.”

Christine winced. She pulled a messy stack of twenties from her purse, finding it lacking. She ducked down and pulled a few bills from the inside of her socks and deposited them on the pile. 

“Sorry,” she said, turning away from the woman so she could reach into her shirt and pull the rest of the money out of her bra. “I’m sorry.”

She pushed all of the bills towards the woman, who didn’t appear fazed by her method of payment. Christine couldn’t remember the last time she’d used a credit card, or what she’d used it on - something frivolous, probably. A coffee or cellphone charm or a scented bath bomb. But she knew that both Raoul and Erik would find a way to track her card purchases, so it had been cash only ever since she’d left. 

The woman slid the fob across the desk and pointed to the left. 

“Your room is right down there, we’ll have complimentary coffee and donuts in the morning, housekeeping comes by at noon, don’t leave your room after sundown, if you need extra towels or blankets just give us a call.”

Christine paused. One of those instructions was not like the others. Still, she took her key and thanked the woman, wanting only to lay down rest after the long walk from the bus stop. 

The room itself was simple and mostly clean. It had an odd smell of mildew and soap. She tossed her duffle onto the chair on the corner and flipped on the tv. It only got five channels, three of which were the exact same channel. She frowned and turned it off before busying herself with settling in the few items she had - her toothbrush next to the bathroom sink, her pajamas next to the pillow on her bed, her hairbrush on the nightstand. By the time she was done, the sun had already set, but instead of feeling sleepy she only felt on edge and antsy. Usually when she felt that way, she went for a walk. The woman at the front desk had said...

But Christine rarely lived her life based on the directives of others. 

She wrapped her light blue pashmina around her - the consolation prize she had bought herself when she had to leave behind her former favorite scarf which had become tainted with bad memories - and locked her door before tucking the key safely into the pocket of her flannel. 

She looked up. It was a bit of a cloudy night, but the moon was full, and she could see where she was going at least. She shoved her hands in her pockets and set out down the sidewalk. 

It was on nights like this that she often second guessed herself. Had she done the right thing? Was she being needlessly cruel? Maybe if she had explained it to them one more time (never mind how often she had explained it before, to no avail) they would have understood. What if she was actually the one in the wrong? 

She sighed deeply. All she knew was that she had no answers no matter how long she asked herself these things. 

She was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of a wolf howling. She shivered. Perhaps that was why the woman at the motel had told her to stay in past sundown - perhaps there was a lot of wildlife nearby. 

The wolf cry suddenly sounded closer, and she froze in her tracks, regretting coming out all by herself, all alone and so close to the woods in an unfamiliar place. 

She was about to turn around and head back to the motel when all at once a huge wolf leapt out of the woods and streaked across the path in front of her. It noticed her and stopped, a snarl on its face. Christine felt a shock of cold fear go through her as though she’d been struck by lightning. 

The wolf was enormous, but there was something off about it - and it had nothing to do with the stark white fur and glowing blue eyes. The proportions seemed wrong somehow, the legs much too long, the face much too big, the claws much too sharp, but she only had a moment to take all that in, instead far too entranced by the creature’s eyes. 

They both stood there and stared at each other for a long moment. The wolf stopped snarling, instead laying its ears flat against its head and sniffing the air. Christine took a deep breath, her fear suddenly and inexplicably gone. This strange wolf - was it a wolf? - would not hurt her, she couldn’t say how she knew, but she _knew_. 

Somewhere in the distance a twig snapped, startling the creature, and it ran off into the woods once more. The strange moment was broken. The world came rushing back in around her. She quickly turned and walked fast back to the motel. 

She didn’t think the wolf was going to attack her, but she was rattled by the encounter all the same. She got ready for bed, still thinking about it, and it wasn’t until the next morning that she realized it had been the first night since she left her life behind that she hadn’t fallen asleep thinking about Erik or Raoul.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a strange thing, wasn’t it? To face down a predator with no fear - or rather, to feel that twinge of fear, that cold shock through her veins, and yet to still stand there and stare as though those claws and teeth wouldn’t devour her in the span of a second. 

She rolled over to her back on musty smelling motel room sheets and stared at the cracked popcorn ceiling. 

That’s what it had felt like with Erik, sometimes, she thought. To be inches away from a predator, but to pretend that wasn’t the case. Perhaps that was unfair - he wasn’t _always_ a predator. He had been sweet to her very often. She’d never forget the flowers he’d bring her on special occasions and just because, or the thoughtful voicemails that cheered her up when she was feeling down, or the way he had worked so tirelessly to improve her voice. Just like how she’d never forget when he had grabbed her hair and dragged her to the ground, screaming at her that she was a lying little Delilah, how terrified she was that the hand that he held in front of her throat was going to make contact with her skin and would mimic its clutching motion around her airway. 

She let her eyes flutter shut and wrinkled her nose. 

She quickly pushed Erik from her mind, something that was easy as she thought of the wolf she had seen. 

Had it really been so oddly shaped? Or was that simply a distortion of memory? She had been tired, and stressed. It had been dark out. She’d been frightened, in shock. Of course she might have trouble remembering something correctly. 

She thought of a movie she’d seen once, one with a bunch of cheesy special effects about a vampire hunter who squared off with a werewolf. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought the animal almost reminiscent of that movie monster...

Christine Daaé knew better. 

She shook her head at herself and got up to dress for the day. Afterwards she stopped by the lobby for a cup of coffee. It was bitter, and the three little paper packets of sugar that she emptied into her styrofoam cup seemed to do nothing to curb that. She grimaced as she drank it down, grabbing a donut to take the taste away. The side of the pink box said _Sorelli’s Patisseries_ , and the donuts inside were all iced with pastel colors and tiny sprinkles. It tasted like biting into a tiny piece of heaven. 

The last of the butter-soft sugary treat melting on her tongue, she set out to see what was in town. There were a few little stores - a grocery store, an Amoco petrol station, a general store, a car repair garage. 

It’s the garage that has the first ‘help wanted’ sign in the window that she’s seen, so she went inside to ask for an application, only to apologize and leave once the man inside good-naturedly asked what her car repair experience was. Sometimes she felt all she did lately was apologize, and it was a thought that made her feel strangely... apologetic. 

Some of her walk was spent passing by a number of little houses, some one story, some two, all of them wooden and some of them painted charming colors with furniture on the patio and potted plants out front. Her heart twisted a little, wondering if she’d ever have a permanent place like that to call her own, or if she’d spend the rest of her life in temporary places, just one step ahead of the men who claimed to love her yet never proved it through their actions. 

As she entered another part of town, she saw a diner that she decided to stop in. Derry was small, but it was still bigger than she’d prefer to walk on a regular basis, and she was determined that the first thing she’d purchase once she got a job was a bicycle. 

She scanned the menu on the table quickly, spotting a childhood favorite of hers listed. She smiled, warm memories flooding back. 

A waitress with kind eyes and a southern accent took her order - chocolate chip pancakes with strawberry syrup - and Christine wondered how many other people in Derry there were like herself, people on the run from something, or hiding from someone. People who had needed a fresh start and who had found it here. People who were just passing through until they found one. She hadn’t heard very many people with the kind of accent she’d expect from Maine. 

The waitress brought her food to her, and they chatted a little. Christine noticed she didn’t ask too many personal questions - she seemed to steer clear of asking where she was from or why she was in Derry, and Christine was grateful. 

“Is there a lot of wildlife around here?” Christine asked. “I heard a wolf last night.”

The waitress laughed. 

“Oh honey, there ain’t no wolves in Derry!”

Christine shook her head. 

“There was! I _saw_ it,” she insisted. 

The look of amusement vanished from the waitress’s face, replaced by one of concern and firmness. 

“There’s no wolves in Derry. Never have been, and I don’t think they just decided to show up last night, either,” she said firmly, and left to refill her water pitcher. 

Christine finished her breakfast, feeling a little weird about the wolf thing. She _had_ seen one... Well, she had seen _something_. 

When she came back next, the waitress was friendly again, and there was no more talk of wolves. 

After she had paid and left a tip tucked under the edge of her plate, Christine continued on down the road. There were a few more shops scattered here and there, some she knew she’d want to go in later - but what stood out to her most was the pink storefront with the delicately painted windows - Sorelli’s Patisseries.


	3. Chapter 3

Sorelli stretched and yawned, the Riot Grrl playlist on her old iPod playing softly through the ancient speakers in the corners of the ceiling. Perhaps some would say the music didn’t mesh with the aesthetic of the little bake shop - girl power punk rock and delicate lace and pink stencil work on the walls - but Sorelli thought it was a perfect metaphor for herself. Sometimes things that didn’t seem to go together ended up working out very well - like the knife she always kept in the pocket of her pleated, frilly skirt. 

She rubbed at her eyes, wrinkling her nose. She’d been up since dawn - or at least, she’d been at the bakery since dawn. She’d been up worrying even earlier than that. 

It was only noon, but she could already tell it was going to be one of those days that dragged on forever. No customers in sight, she dared to slip back to the kitchen and grab a tube of homemade frosting from the fridge, squeezing the teal substance out onto her hand and quickly licking it off. 

“ _Heck_ ,” she muttered, realizing the food coloring had stained her skin. 

She really had to start using a plate for that instead. 

The sound of the back door opening caught her attention. Her hand in her pocket, clutching the handle of her knife, she went to investigate. 

She was greeted by the sight of her roommate, Meg. She let go of the knife and reached out to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

“Hey,” she said softly. “You doing okay, kid?”

Meg nodded. She looked like she hadn’t slept a wink all night. To the untrained eye, one would assume that she hadn’t bothered to brush her hair or put makeup on, but Sorelli knew better - she really had tried to look presentable, but last night was a full moon, and this was the best Meg could manage at times like this. 

“I’m okay,” her voice sounded a little rough around the edges. 

“You sure you wanna work today?” concern laced her voice. “You can take the day off, ya know. Get some rest?”

Meg shook her head as she tied her apron on. 

“No, I’ll be fine,” she picked up a broom and dustpan. “I’ll make sure to stay out of sight of the customers, though, to not ruin the fine-dining aesthetic you’ve got going on here.”

Meg stuck her tongue out at Sorelli as she made her way into the kitchen, a spark of mischief lighting up her otherwise tired eyes. 

“What customers?” Sorelli teased as she went back out to the front of the store, putting a plastic glove on to hide the frosting stains on her fingers. 

Meg barked a laugh from in the kitchen. 

Sorelli grabbed an orange juice bottle from the refrigerated case by the front door and took it back to the kitchen, tossing it to Meg. 

“Drink up, kiddo,” she told her as Meg caught it. “Did you eat yet today?”

Had she not been so tired, she would have retorted with her oft-used line that informed Sorelli that she was only six years and eight months older than Meg and thus nowhere near old enough to be calling her ‘kiddo’, but in times like these it felt nice to have someone look after her, so she let it slide. 

She opened the orange juice and took a swig, thinking about Sorelli’s question. 

“Not that I’m aware of,” she muttered, her eyes on the floor. 

Sorelli grimaced. 

“Oof.”

The little string of bells on the front door jingled, and Sorelli had to leave Meg by herself. Once behind the counter, she smiled as she recognized some of her regular customers. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Dean, how are you today? What can I get for you?”

Outside, Christine paused a moment to look both ways on the deserted street before she stepped into the road. All other thoughts drained from her mind and she crossed the street and went right inside the patisserie, little bells chiming to announce her arrival. There was an older couple inside, placing their order, and Christine took her time to look around. The chalkboard menu had over a dozen treats listed in swirling letters, and a number of other things offered besides. The back of the shop was lined with large glass cases that held the most delicious looking pastries she’d ever seen. There was a refrigerated case on one wall, and she approached it to take a bottled water from one of the shelves. It also held milk bottles - chocolate, strawberry, and plain all offered - grape juice, orange juice, apple juice, and something called Nozz-A-La soda. Christine squinted her eyes at the soda, at its red can with scrolling white script that spelled out its name - it looked so familiar but she had never heard of it before. 

The older couple paid for their food and left, and the young woman behind the counter greeted Christine. 

“How can I help you?”

Christine eyed the case of pastries with envy. She didn’t have a lot of money left, not after paying for the motel. She had emptied her savings before she left New York, but it hadn’t been very much. 

She placed the water bottle on the counter and the woman pressed a button in the cash register. 

“It all looks so good. I had one of the donuts earlier, at the motel - you know, the one just up the street? I think it was the best donut I’ve ever had. My, uh, my compliments to the chef.”

Christine mentally kicked herself - she was rambling, she knew it, but she couldn’t help being that way around pretty women, and this woman was _pretty_. 

But the woman just laughed. 

“Thank you! I’m the chef! I make all the donuts and cookies and pies, and Meg makes all the cakes and pastries,” she glanced behind the kitchen, and upon hearing her name, another young woman poked her head out the kitchen door. 

Meg looked first at her coworker, and then at Christine. She stared at her a long moment, eyes wide, and it was Christine who looked away first, her cheeks pink. Meg had such _blue_ eyes, it made Christine squirm a little. 

“I’ll take a slice of coconut cake, then. And a croissant,” Christine kept her gaze lowered, her face getting redder. 

The woman boxed Christine’s order and rang it up, and all the while Christine could feel those forget-me-not eyes on her as Meg took a broom and began to sweep the store despite there being no dust or crumbs on the faded linoleum tiles. Christine dared another sidelong glance at her, only for a second, and couldn’t help the little smile that came to her face as she found she had to look away again. 

Meg had curly, light blonde hair that was in a messy bun - everything about her looked a little messy, if Christine was being honest. She had dark circles under her eyes like she hadn’t slept in days, and her complexion was pale despite the freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. 

Christine had always been a sucker for freckles. 

But there was something about the way she looked at her, almost as if she was frightened, almost as if she wanted to call out to an old friend. But she didn’t say a word, not as Christine paid, not as she took her bag of treats and thanked the woman, not as she began to walk slowly to the door. 

The woman went around the counter and placed a hand on Meg’s shoulder. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked her. “You can take the day off, if you want.”

Meg shook her head. 

“I’m fine,” she said quietly. “I prefer to work. It takes my mind off it.”

The woman nodded and squeezed her shoulder a little. 

Christine hesitated by the door. She turned around and took a deep breath. 

“Hey, I know there’s not a sign in the window or anything, but - are you guys hiring?”

She didn’t know what it was, but she never wanted to leave that little bake shop. It made her feel safe in a way she hadn’t felt in ages. 

Meg and the other woman exchanged a look. 

“Why?” Sorelli asked, and Christine flinched. 

“I- I need a job,” she shrugged a little, shy. “I’m new here, and- and this seems like really nice place to work...”

“How much experience do you have with baking?”

Christine stood on the threshold and fiddled with her fingers. 

“I used to bake Christmas cookies for Papa?” 

Sorelli waited for her to continue, but that was the extent of her experience. 

Christine hung her head. 

“I’m sorry, I guess I shouldn’t have asked,” she said as she pushed the door open and hurried outside. 

“Wait!” Sorelli said. 

But Christine was already gone.


End file.
